Lauren Moffatt: Pioneering Immersive Art with “Echo Locations”
Lauren Moffatt, the Australian artist who is renowned for her immersive environments and experimental narrative practices, has developed an intriguing new concept through despace’s small-grants program, from the depths of “the rabbit hole.” Her latest project, Echo Locations (previously Seeing/Unseen), is an artwork for mobile devices. It enables visitors to view and/or interact with geo-located augmented reality sculptures that are dynamically influenced by environmental data. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Let’s dive further into it.
Echo Locations is a pioneering project that connects people to the hidden ecosystems that surround them. The research proposal focuses on urban bat species, with populations in both Berlin and Valencia, where most of the prototyping is expected to occur. Lauren’s project explores the paradoxical subjectivity of connected bodies and the indistinct boundaries between digital and organic life. The sculptures are data-driven, and their appearance is influenced by data streamed to them while also being recorded on the Tezos blockchain. 🦇
“Why bats?” one might ask. During the COVID-19 isolation period, Lauren became fascinated with watching bats in the evenings when they would emerge to feed at sunset from her balcony. “I eventually discovered that there was a bat colony residing in a crevasse between two buildings on my street,” she explains. “I found it intriguing that these creatures live so near to humans and coexist with our ecosystems, but they are primarily invisible to us.”
The research phase has begun and Lauren gained a better understanding of these fascinating creatures. By observing their flight patterns, activity levels, and other characteristics, she has started to sketch and experiment with the beautiful and aesthetic shapes formed from the collected data. As she delves deeper, Lauren continues to test and experiment, combining different data points to create 3D trajectories of the bats.
The augmented reality sculptures that can be viewed through the interface are just one aspect of the project. These sculptures are dynamically affected by environmental data streamed to them from the surrounding urban ecosystem via the blockchain. As a result, the sculptures are in a constant state of change and evolution in real-time, offering visitors a distinct and captivating experience that is never identical.
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Lauren’s vision for Echo Locations goes beyond just its immediate impact on the art world. By prototyping an open-source dataset of environmental data on the blockchain, the project has the potential to benefit researchers across multiple fields. This data can assist scientists in identifying patterns in the behavior of different species, aiding in a better understanding of the urban ecosystem and its impact on wildlife. Moreover, the dataset can inform urban planning decisions and emphasize the importance of incorporating wildlife habitats in the design of urban spaces.
The results of the research and sketches will become NFTs minted on the Tezos blockchain, available to be collected and viewed at her Objkt page, while also on the exposing galleries. Lauren is finalising her project and preparing for the launch in April.
You can see the outcome from Echo Locations in Lauren’s solo show Nocturnes at DAM Gallery in Berlin opening April 14th, as well as in her residency at Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras in Alicante during the months of April and May.
About Echo Locations
Echo Locations is a project that not only challenges certain perceptions of art but also provides a platform for meaningful discourse on urban ecology. Moffatt’s work has always been known to push boundaries, and this project is no exception. It is not only an artistic creation but a tool for research and an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the environment.
Echo Locations (previously ‘Seeing/Unseen’) is supported by Down The Rabbit Hole, a small-grants program of despace berlin, funded by the Tezos Foundation.
About Lauren Moffatt
Lauren Moffatt is an Australian artist working with immersive environments and experimental narrative practices. Her works, often presented in hybrid and iterative forms, explore the paradoxical subjectivity of connected bodies and the indistinct boundaries between digital and organic life. In 2021 she was awarded the DKB VR Art Prize (DE). Lauren completed her studies in painting, in theory, and practice of new media art, and in audiovisual creation at the College of Fine Arts (AU), Université Paris VIII (FR), and at Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains (FR) respectively. Lauren’s works have been exhibited most recently at La Gaïté Lyrique (FR), SXSW (US), Haus am Lützowplatz (DE), UNSW Galleries (AU), Daegu Art Museum (KOR), Le Grand Palais Ephémère (FR), SAVVY Contemporary (DE), FACT Liverpool (UK) The Sundance Film Festival (US) ZKM (DE), Q21 Freiraum (AT) and at Hartware MedienkunstVerein (DE). She lives and works in Berlin and Valencia.
